I think I’ve mentioned before that Liquid Television was both hugely influential on me and kinda turned out to be an animated version of RAW. And it was Liquid TV where I first saw the work of RAW and, later MAD contributor, Drew Friedman. He had a few “Uncle Louie” shorts, featuring the titular character travelling through the sewers to save on travel expenses. I loved the stippling style of the artwork, the amazingly detailed and photorealistic characters — a mix of the perfectly normal and the strangely grotesque — and the cutout animation. Continue reading →

When I was young, my dad and I were both huge fans of MTV’s Liquid TV. Actually, that’s not quite true — we still are, it’s just not on anymore. Until they finally release it on DVD, we’ll be happy to make due with the burns of it I downloaded from torrents. The great thing with Liquid TV is the way it turned me on to a lot of great artists; that was where I saw the work of Richard Sala for the first time, and it introduced me, in a sideways way to Charles Burns – though that’d be solidified with the documentary Comic Book Confidential which included a narrated Big Baby strip.

I’ve been a huge fan of Michael Kupperman‘s work when he was known as P. Revess, running “Up All Night” in The Stranger (among other weeklies, of course). His woodcut-and-clipart inspired artwork combined with his absurdist sense of humor is a perfect combination; perhaps my favorite is Snake ‘n’ Bacon, the cop team that’s a snake (who can only hiss) and a slice of bacon (who can only talk about things you can do with bacon — like use bacon in a sandwich or pat it down with a paper towel to remove excess grease).